Stirling Newberry writes:

>But in the end the incontrovertable evidence of inquriy is that music
>is neither a thing apart, nor is it a specied of language, and that
>the structure of cognition is far more complex than we have heretofore
>considered.

I agree.  All this reminds me of the controversies concerning artificial
intelligence, neural nets, etc.  Some physiologist is quoted to the effect
that the brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile - a reminder
that thought is a biological process which may not be transferrable to
computers.  LIkewise musical invention and expression may well be
intimately tied to processes in the human nervous system and the human
body.  It is, I believe, not absurd to speculate that the expression of
emotion in music is related to various biological rhythms.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University